[TL] Beginner (25k) looking for teaching games

Hello! I have some theoretical knowledge of Go but I have little practical application as I don’t play enough. I watch videos, do online tutorials and started going to a Go club once a week, but I would like to play more games. I am hoping that by playing more I will better develop my reading skills as I don’t always know what is the next best move. I’m looking for someone to play live teaching games. (Time zone GMT-5)

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Don’t worry this issue will surely disappear once you’re no longer a beginner.

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Pretty sure even Shin Jinseo doesn’t always know what is the next best move :thinking:

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Thank you! lol There are so many possible moves that I honestly can’t tell what’s a bad move or a good move.

Knowing what the best move is, is a lot more difficult than discerning good moves from bad moves. Still, even strong players play some pretty bad moves, but they do it less frequently than beginners.

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I was obviously being sarcastic (or at least I thought it was obvious!)

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Sarcasm is often lost in writing, especially when it’s not necessary.

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Be patient, as there are more things to learn by yourself as things explained in books and such.
One want to understand but one has to get used to the game first so enjoy as much as you can playing lot of games (preferably with players of your level). That’s my advice as it seems you studied a bit but can’t apply easely.
Have fun anyway!

Playing more you’ll definitely improve.
If you’re worried about your next move, maybe reading isn’t the main topic.
I’d suggest:

  • urgent moves first, then big moves
  • shapes
  • direction of play

While reading is very useful for all of them, it isn’t really necessary to fix your weak groups, fix your shape and decide the target for your next move.
I don’t want to mean that reading is useless, it’s very useful and getting better at it will improve all your skills, but you can definitely become SDK without investing too much on it.

I hate tsumegos and I’m about 4k on OGS. A huge part of my moves is decided with very little reading. And when I really need to read… I just fail because I’m not trained to it! :grin:

Thank you for the advice! I guess part of why I want to improve my reading is because I can’t always tell what move is urgent. But honestly it’s like @Groin said, I just need to be patient and play more games. All this will come in due time. I will look into improving the areas you recommended as well.

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They are related for sure.

Urgent moves are usually:

  • I need to put one more stone to make sure that my group is alive (I don’t want to be killed)
  • My opponent didn’t put one more stone to make sure that his group is alive, so I must play there now, before he notices and fixes that (I want to kill that)

If you want to be sure, you have to read. Sometimes you have to read a lot of possible variations. It’s hard!

Otherwise you can just play safe and spend one more move without reading so much. When in doubt, play one more move there.
You could possibly waste a move and lose sente when it isn’t really necessary, but you’ll get better at it as long as you keep playing.

Tsumego puzzle are great for improving at it.

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Hi!

Since you seem the studious beginner type, I believe you might enjoy practicing the Clossi Approach demonstrated in this Youtube playlist (by the guy who gave the name to the approach). (from 3:30 to 5:00 he’s just trying to find a game, you can skip that part).

It’s a method that gives you “basic” guidelines you can follow while playing, so you can focus on learning a new thing in every game without being overwhelmed by everything being confusing.

I’m also available if you still would like a teaching game, although If I understand correctly you’re in America and I’m in Europe – from experience, our active timezones only overlap in your morning, somewhere in between 2023-02-05T15:00:00Z and 2023-02-05T18:00:00Z would usually be good for me (those are dynamic timestamps that adapt to the reader’s timezone).

If you’re interested, we can set a day to play :slight_smile:

If not, no worries. Good luck in your Go journey!

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Thank you! I will work on more tsumego problems.

I am watching the video now, very informative. I would love to play at some point! Thank you!